Mermaids
by bhut
Summary: Prequel to "Flesh and Blood", slight AU. Abby's feeling down after the encounter with the Mer, so Helen decides to cheer her up in her usual manner...
1. Chapter 1

**Mermaids**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to their Impossible Pictures™._

_Note: this story contains spoilers for the official series._

The small blonde woman was sitting on a park bench, looking clearly despondent. Helen Cutter was, technically, not supposed to be here, but when was the last time she did pay attention to technicalities? Only when it suited her - that is when.

"And what's wrong with you?" she asked simply, sitting onto the bench next to the younger woman. "Your boyfriend or girlfriend broke up with you?"

"I don't have a boyfriend – and I'm straight, thank you very much," Abby said grouchily, as she blew her nose on a Kleenex™. "Why are you asking this? Why do you care? Why are you here?"

"Let's see," Helen shrugged as she leaned backwards. "I too am straight, contrary to what Nick may think – he's the gay one in our marriage, I suspect. I am asking you this because you look like you saw one of your dreams die before your eyes and you had to bury it as well. I care... well, rather, I'm just curious," Helen shrugged, not really knowing herself the answer to that question of Abby's. "And I'm here, in London, on personal business."

"Well then, you can go on with your personal business and leave me alone," Abby said flatly.

"I will, once I'll make sure that everything is all right with you," Helen did not back down from the younger woman's half-hearted challenge. "If your love life is either fine or non-existent, what's wrong with you then?"

Abby paused, and then decided to spill the beans. It is not as if Helen was going to talk about this to Jenny and others at the ARC, now would she? "When you were little, did you believe in the mermaids?"

"Oh?" Helen actually looked taken aback. "Mermaids? Really?"

"Yeah, when I was little, I used to dream of being a mermaid and living under the sea."

"You'd have a tail that would be covered in scales of gold and green and long flowing hair to match it," Helen said quietly. "You'd also not be a human, though you'd look human from the waist up, and your personality... do not get me started on your personality as such." She paused. "Of course, you'd also have a lovely, enticing voice... don't get me started on the voice..." she fell silent, clearly thinking about something of her own.

"...What are you talking about?" Abby finally found her voice. "Mermaids aren't real!"

"In this dimension, in this timeline, they are not," Helen agreed, still subdued. "But the possibilities of evolution are endless – even more endless than how we prefer to theorize. And the time anomalies – they can take a traveller not just through time, but through dimensions, I have you know. There's a world without shrimp, a world without scorpions and spiders, a world without dragonflies and similar insects, and more..."

"And there's a world with mermaids?" Abby insisted.

"Yes, weren't you listening to what I just said?" Helen said, now cross. "Sometimes... sometimes they find the sequence of time anomalies that leads to our timeline and our world and that's how the myths arose." She paused. "And you really should read them to realize that what you have encountered may not look like the mythical mermaid on the outside, but certainly behaved as they were on the inside."

"Really?" Abby still could not believe what she was hearing, even from Helen Cutter. "Could I... could I see a real life mermaid?"

Helen stared at her as if she could not believe her ears. "Well, why not?" she replied, clearly after a thoughtful pause. "Let's go and talk to Kuro about it, shall we?"

And they were off.

_TBC_


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapter._

To Abby's surprise, she and Helen did not have to go far, just over several streets to a small, slightly suburban-looking area with houses rather than condominium buildings. The fact that Helen did look somewhat shifty and conspirational had mollified Abby's surprise and justified some of her expectations, but not all of them, as Helen eventually abandoned her caution and knocked on the door of one of the houses.

Immediately, a giantess opened the door, making Abby feel more regular: this was more up to the ARC's standards.

"Hello, Kuro," Helen said brightly. "This is Abby; she wants to see your trophy mermaid."

"Interesting," the giantess – Kuro – said brightly. "Come on in and let's talk about it."

/

Inside, Abby felt even more worried – the house looked positively mundane, if not counting its owner's slightly-larger-than-the-average body size.

"So," the giantess-Kuro said brightly, "why do you want to see a mermaid?"

"She's a mermaid groupie," Helen shrugged, "and had encountered some of the sea monkeys from our future. She needs to see a 'real' mermaid from your world, to see things in the perspective, you know?"

"Fair enough," Kuro nodded, before turning to Abby. "So, are you game?"

"Um, "Abby shook her head to clear it. "What do you mean, _your_ world?"

"I came from an alternate dimension via a series of time anomalies," Kuro shrugged. "Met Helen, and became on and off travelling companions ever since."

"Oh," Abby blinked. "How's that working out?"

"Well enough," Helen said crossly, clearly uncomfortable talking about her and her adventures away from the ARC. "Shall we go and see the mermaid now?"

"You mean, that's not her?" Abby could not help but channel her inner blonde at the moment.

"No, little puff ball, the mermaids – the merfolk – are a completely different species from me," the grin that Kuro gave Abby was not very friendly and showed too much teeth for Abby's comfort, "or you, either. Do not joke about this ever again, or I will get upset. You won't like it, when I'm upset."

Abby looked at Kuro in a new light, decided that there really was not a chance that she could take her _and_ Helen at the same time if they got into a fight, and nodded. "Deal."

There was a pause as each member of the trio waited for the others to make the next move.

"So, what happens now?" Abby could not help but ask.

"Now we go and see the mermaid," Kuro shrugged and opened a door to her basement – and there was a time anomaly.

/

By now, Abby was used to time anomalies – sort of. The fact that a Mer (or a giant sea monkey, depending on who was telling the story) has kidnapped her through one of them counted too for the fact that she did go through this one – and found herself inside a relatively dark and wet cave. Relatively, because there was some illumination, mostly from strange-looking torches located on the walls.

"So," Abby said with a rather fake bravado, "where's the mermaid?"

And the mermaid rose from the pool (that occupied the greater part of the cave) with nary a sound, and she was as Helen described her – a well (very well) built woman from waist up, a beautiful fish tail from the waist down, beautiful, long hair slicking down her back – and eyes that were black, and cold, and not-quite-human.

And neither was the mermaid's face, for all of its beauty – it was not exactly built like a human face either. "What is she?" Abby said, quietly, without any bravado.

"The descendants of lobe-finned fish in _this_ universe," Helen said, also quietly – but, perhaps, not quietly enough as the mermaid twisted her whole body, not just her head and neck, in their direction and said something... in Latin?

Furthermore, neither Helen nor her friend seemed particularly surprised by this, and began to have 'a lovely discussion' with the mermaid, all in Latin, the sort that Abby's parents used to hold, only English, if their facial expressions were anything for Abby to judge by.

"Please don't," she said quietly, and the mermaid was the first to one to hear her, as she whirled to Abby and began to yell at her – before getting out of the pool and charging at her.

Later, Abby would realize that the mermaid could move so fast because her tail ended not in a fishy tail fin, but in something more like a sea lion's flippers, but back then she didn't think about that as the mermaid charged at her like some sort of a crazy, elongated seal...

...or as Kuro grabbed the mermaid by the nape and lifted her into the air, effortlessly, and flung her back into the pool, just as effortlessly.

"I think it's time for us to leave," Helen said with a surprisingly gentle voice to Abby, and so they left.

_TBC_


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

_Note: "Flesh and Blood should be read before this story for it to make more sense._

It was some time later. Abby was once more sitting in a comfortable living room, drinking tea with some sort of a brownie cake, and feeling positively surreal, seeing how Helen Cutter had made it, and it was good – which she promptly told the older woman.

"Small surprise," the ex-anthropologist said with a grimace. "When I married Nick, I became a housewife. I hated that, but I loved him – at that moment in time, and so I became a housewife, and my duties included cooking and cleaning." Her face grew hard. "Since then, I became a time traveller instead, but these skills still stick."

"Really, a housewife?" Abby could not help but ask.

"Yes," Helen nodded, "and what about you? Who do you plan to be once you're married?"

"Gah? Gah! That's- that's personal!" Abby sputtered. "Mind your own business."

"Fair enough," Helen nodded, but looked slightly hurt. "Well, I'm assuming that you're feeling better now?"

"Yes," Abby nodded gratefully, finally standing up away from the table. "Thank you. I really should be going now."

"And you're free to go," Kuro spoke up, "the bus stop is just down the street and around the corner. You can't miss it," she paused. "But please, do not tell about this to anyone, 'cause if you do, I won't kill you – since Helen trusted you enough to bring you here – but you will not like what I will do to you instead – do you understand me?"

Abby looked straight in the eyes of the much bigger woman – and did not like what she saw there one little bit. "Okay," she complied quickly, "thank you for the tea, bye now," and she quickly left.

Moreover, Abby quickly left and never returned – just as she agreed to Kuro's statement. She remembered the address where she and Helen came to as clearly as she did remember the Latin-speaking mermaid, but she never returned to that place, not even when Helen's co-operation with Oliver Leek's crazy plot...

...But when later, once the ARC exploded and Helen _did not_ shoot Nick, Abby did – but that was an entirely new story.

End


End file.
